


Not in Silence and Not in Sound

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Paint The Sky With Stars [19]
Category: Night World - Fandom, Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Alternate Universe - Witches, Crossover, Fusion, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-06-05
Packaged: 2018-07-12 09:09:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7095898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Stargate Atlantis, John Sheppard/Rodney McKay, 'Do you think there's someplace where we can meet that's not in silence and not in sound?'"</p><p>Rodney and John save each other.</p><p>Tag to The Shrine continued.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not in Silence and Not in Sound

“Where are we?” Rodney asked.

“This is your mind,” John said.

John was incredibly handsome. Rodney had felt sad and alone and confused in this wide open space, this galaxy with gaping holes ripped into the fabric of its reality, as if stars had just been torn out of the sky. Only it wasn’t the sky, because he wasn’t on a planet. He knew that much. He was pretty sure stars couldn’t get torn out of existence like that, but he didn’t know why that was impossible. But having John there was nice. John was nice.

“I don’t like it very much,” Rodney said. “It’s...wrong.”

“It’ll be all right,” John said. “Dr. Keller is working on fixing you right up.”

“Dr. Keller?”

“The chief medical officer,” John said.

Right. Rodney was a doctor, too, but a different kind. Dr. Keller was the medical kind.

Scenes flashed in the sky above them. A kind-faced woman. Rodney himself, kneeling in front of some kind of device full of crystals, working on it with competent hands. He couldn’t do that anymore.

“Why does she have to fix me up?”

“To bring the stars back.”

Rodney peered up at the gaps in reality and shivered. “I don’t like it here. Can we go somewhere else?”

John held out his hand. “Sure. Anything you want.”

Rodney took his hand, and when they touched, warmth went through him. They walked - which was impossible, because they were in outer space with no planets, there was no up and down, no backward and forward, but Rodney realized they were actually headed toward a destination. A tiny point of light that grew brighter and brighter. Not a star, not a planet.

A piece of silver. It stretched out in front of them. It was thick and strong and woven like ones of those cables on a suspension bridge.

“What is that?”

“It’s the road to another place,” John said. “Walk with me.” He tightened his grip on Rodney’s hand, and then they were moving forward. John kept one hand on the silver cable, the other hand in Rodney’s, and on they went.

It felt like they were moving forever and going nowhere, and suddenly they were somewhere else.

In a sky.

Many skies. Rodney looked down, and there was no planet, but he was definitely in a sky. The nearest patch of sky was blue, like a pleasant summer day, but a distant patch of sky was white, like falling snow, and yet another patch of sky was sickly green. Tornado. To the left was the dark sky of a thunderstorm, massive clouds roiling. Only when it began to rain, black rose petals fell instead of raindrops.

“What is this place?” Rodney drew closer to John.

“This is my mind,” John said.

Rodney reached out, held his hand beneath one of the storm clouds (impossible, the mismatched scales of hand size to cloud size were all wrong, physics had gone out the window), and the flower petals dissolved like cool water on his skin.

“Are you unhappy?” Rodney asked.

“No,” John said quickly, and the skies filled with sunlight, with vapor trails, and Rodney saw - scenes. Like he’d seen in his own mind. Only every scene featured the same man, beautiful, glowing, with brilliant blue eyes and sure, perfect hands and a smile that rivaled the sun. The man was eating, was working, was walking the trails of a dusty planet. Was kissing John. Was lying beside him.

“Who is that?” Rodney asked. He reached out, tried to touch the vision, but it was far away or not there at all, only he could see it, feel it. Feel the warmth and happiness radiating from it.

“You,” John said.

Rodney pulled back from the vision. “No, I - I’m not that beautiful. I -”

“Yes, you are,” John said, and kissed him.

Rodney closed his eyes, and yes, he knew this, remembered this.

Remembered - everything. The flooded planet. The cold water. The way Teyla had pressed her hand to his forehead to check his temperature, a gesture more motherly and affectionate than he’d ever known from his own mother.

And he remembered being so tired, and his head hurting so much.

He opened his eyes.

Keller, Ronon, Teyla, and Evan stood over him.

“Where’s John?” Rodney demanded.

Ronon leaned in and sniffed him.

“What the hell?”

“He’s better,” Ronon said. “I don’t know how or why. But it’s gone.”

“How do we know this is not like the Shrine? Where it only appears to be gone?” Teyla asked.

“Where what is gone? _Where’s John?_ ” Rodney tried to push himself up, felt a sting in the back of his hand. IV.

And then he saw John, lying in the other bed, asleep. There was a tube leading from him to Rodney’s IV bag, and Rodney realized. They were giving him John’s blood.

“John and I aren’t compatible blood types,” he said. “What’s going on?”

Keller said, “Ronon and Teyla call it the Second Childhood.” She explained the disease briefly.

“Why do I need John’s blood? How is that possibly helpful for dementia?”

“We checked the Ancient Database,” Keller said. “As it turns out, the Second Childhood is actually caused by a parasite in the brain. The only way to kill it is to irradiate it. Or - hit it with vampire blood.”

“ _Vampire_ blood? You let John feed and trigger his vampiric -?” Rodney went to yank the IV out, but Ronon stilled his hand.

“It was his choice.”

“Why is he unconscious? What’s going on?”

“He wanted me to put him in a medically-induced coma for the withdrawal process,” Keller said.

“Why is he unconscious now?”

Evan said, quietly, “He wanted to be with you. In your mind. In the land without silence and sound.”

Land without silence and sound. The stars. The holes in the sky. John’s mind. His memories of Rodney.

“You can guide him through the pain of withdrawal, if you like,” Evan continued. “Mind-to-mind. It’s something soulmates can do for each other.”

Rodney looked at John, then nodded and lay back. “Keller,” he said, “put me under.”

He closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, he was standing in black space lit by innumerable stars, and John was standing with him, holding out his hand.

“Welcome back. I see you’re all in one piece.”

Rodney took his hand. “Let’s head over to your place and see about making you the same.”

When they crossed the silver bridge into John’s mind, the skies were all storming, wind and hail and lightning, and through it all, a flurry of black petals. Rodney held John and kissed him through the shaking and shuddering and pain, and it felt like forever, but finally, finally, the storm stopped, and they could both open their eyes and be all right.


End file.
